


What's in a name

by elaiel



Series: The Other Man [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amnesia, Caretaking, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24512410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elaiel/pseuds/elaiel
Summary: “My name is Sirius, Sirius Black.” He asked the man.“Who are you?”The man shrugged. “They call me The Asset.”Sirius peered at him. “You don’t have a name?”
Series: The Other Man [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771291
Comments: 13
Kudos: 66





	What's in a name

By the time they reached the land, Sirius was close to collapse. The muggle man just swam strongly next to him, until the water was too shallow, where he stood and hauled Sirius out of the water. He stood the dog on his four feet and waited, standing impassive in the moonlight. Sirius’ knees buckled and he collapsed to the sand. The man looked down at him for a few seconds, then picked him up in his arms and started walking. 

Sirius did not have the energy to even complain and when the man shrugged him up into a better hold, he curled into the man’s warm chest and eventually dozed. 

He woke sometime later, it was still dark but he had absolutely no idea how much time had passed. He had woken when the man had put him down, and he looked around blearily. The man had put him down in a very dry drift of dead leaves under the low branches of a hazel tree in small copse. He could hear footsteps walking away from him, apparently out of the small stand of trees, which he assumed were the man. 

He thought about following him, but he was not sure whether staying with the man was a good idea, and following him when he wanted to leave Sirius behind was probably a worse idea. That was also not factoring in that Sirius was not sure if he could even walk. His muscles, his chest, his legs, even his tail ached. Sirius shuffled a bit further down into the leaves and some warmth began to build up around him. 

It must have been about half an hour of dozing when, to Sirius surprise, the man returned, carrying a small stack of dead wood and something vaguely shiny in his hand. Sirius watched with interest as the man cleared a space on the ground, dug a shallow pit and took the large piece of flint he had brought back with him. The man cracked the flint against his left hand repeatedly, scattering sparks across a small heap of something until finally one caught. 

Realising them were about to have a real fire and warmth, Sirius let out a heartfelt sigh. The man looked at him with an almost amused look in his eyes, before going back to slowly building the tiny fire. 

Once the fire was built, the man started examining his clothes. Outside of Azkaban and the dementors, he appeared less confused and more able to think, as you would expect. Sirius wondered if anyone had even studied the effect of repeated dementor exposure on muggles. It seemed unlikely. However, the man appeared to be recovering thankfully. 

The man appeared to have found what he wanted, and removed the drawstrings from the bottom of his trouser legs, he rubbed them in the dirt, then walked off. He was gone for maybe ten minutes. Sirius kept an eye on the fire. He was not sure whether he would have the energy to change back and add more wood should it start to go out but it kept burning merrily and even the look of it was enough to improve Sirius spirits. 

The man came back as the sky was beginning to turn towards dawn, with a large armful of bracken and long grass, which he proceeded to turn into some sort of bed for himself next to Sirius’ bed,, then used some sticks broken from the trees to weave a kind of hurdle or panel for the other side of the fire. Sirius realised quite quickly it was keeping the wind off them and reflecting heat and light back towards them. 

Sirius wondered if he should be contributing. Not that he was much use, he could barely move and was currently a dog, but he felt somewhat guilty. The man didn’t seem to care, just continued to build his bed, tend the fire and then went out again. He came back in the gathering light with a pair of rabbits, quite obviously snared. Sirius was amazed as the man shattered the flint from earlier and with a sharp flake, gutted the rabbits onto a piece of bark which he threw out into the trees, then skinned them and spitted them over the fire. 

Finally, the man sat back against a tree to watch the meat cook. 

Sirius was woken by a gentle poke. The man was waiting, watching him, holding a cooked rabbit on a stick. Seeing Sirius was alive, he put it down on a couple of large leaves which he had obviously spread in front of Sirius just for that purpose. Sirius dragged himself upright, gave a doggy grin at the man who nodded back at him, then set to eating his rabbit. 

Once the sun was up, the man had extinguished the fire by piling dirt on it and they had both slept. Sirius woke, alone again, in the late afternoon feeling thirsty. He pulled himself to his feet, actually feeling able to move and probably well enough to transform back into a human. Water was a stronger priority though and his canine nose was much better suited to finding a source of safe water. He paused, then scratched the word WATER in the dirt, before wandering off. 

Water turned out to be quite easy to find. The copse they were hiding in, he guessed they were hiding, was in a large field of sheep and a reasonable sized stream ran through the centre of the field. Sirius trotted to where the stream entered the field from a neighbouring empty field to minimise the effect of the sheep and had a long drink of the water, which smelled and tasted pretty clean. 

He paused to relieve himself in an out of the way corner of the field before trotting back to the copse. The man was back by the time he returned. 

“We need to talk.” The man said. “Can you turn back?”

Sirius sat down and concentrated, his magic wasn’t as strong as it should be. He wouldn’t want to apparate or engage in any duels, but he was back in human form in pretty short measure. 

“My name is Sirius, Sirius Black.” He asked the man.“Who are you?” 

The man shrugged. “They call me The Asset.”

Sirius peered at him. “You don’t have a name?”

“Зимний солдат.” The man said offhandedly. 

“That’s not English.” Sirius said. 

“Winter Soldier.” The man replied. 

Sirius stopped and thought. This wasn’t actually getting anywhere. These obviously weren’t names, but a title or a job.

“What do you want to be called?” 

That made the man stop. He stared at Sirius in confusion before finally speaking.

“I...don’t know.” He said slowly.

“What have people called you before?”

“The Asset. Зимний солдат. Солдат. Soldier.”

“Those aren’t names,” Sirius said carefully, “those are titles or jobs.”

The man looked away. eyebrows furrowed and he looked almost childlike, eyes not fully focused as he looked back up at Sirius and murmured “Who the hell is Bucky?”

“Is that your name?” Sirius asked.

There was a long pause.

“It...might have been.” 

The man was still frowning. The plates of his metal arm suddenly all moved out then reset themselves in a wave from fingers to shoulder. He didn’t seem to notice it had happened, so Sirius guessed it was either very normal or a nervous reaction. 

“Okay,” Sirius spoke quietly, “a better question might be, do you want it to be your name?”

The man immediately looked up at him. 

“You don’t need to answer now.” Sirius said. “It’s up to you and I can call you anything you want.”

The man didn’t reply, just looked away. Sirius assumed he was thinking and left him to it. 

Sirius clothes were pretty disgusting with dirt and very ragged. He could use magic to clean himself and his clothes, but he didn’t have a wand and his magic was still quite weak, so wandless magic seemed too risky. He changed into a dog to trot through the field and into the adjoining wood, where he changed back, stripped off and washed himself and his clothes as best as he could in the stream. The water was freezing cold, but he felt considerably better when he was as clean as he could get. He wrung the water out of his clothes and wrapped them in a bundle he could carry as a dog, before turning back into a dog and trotting back, bundle in mouth. 

The man was still sitting where he had been before and didn’t talk to Sirius until well after he had turned back into a man, hung most of his clothes on branches in beams of sunlight to dry and sat down again. 

“I can be Bucky.” The man said, suddenly.

Sirius looked up at him from where he was trying to clean dirt out from behind his nails. 

“Good.” He said, grinning. “Hello Bucky.”

Bucky looked at him. “Hello Sirius.” He gave Sirius a tentative smile. 

They sat in relative silence for a while before Bucky finally looked up at Sirius. 

“You have the watch?”

Sirius nodded. “I can keep watch.”

Bucky laid down on his makeshift bed and apparently immediately went to sleep. Sirius looked around, then, with nothing else to do, turned back into a dog. His canine sense of smell and hearing would alert him of problems far sooner than his human eyesight. 

He looked over at the newly named Bucky. He had no idea who the man was, or why Bucky trusted him, but he could keep watch for a bit while the man caught some sleep. He moved to a better vantage point, sat on a tree root and kept watch. 


End file.
